Historian, Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

Not only were MPs lining up to sell their parliamentary influence to the highest bidder on the recent Dispatches programme. Geoff Hoon offered to sell to defence companies inside knowledge of future defence trends from his insider position as a member of a NATO advisory committee – and to help US defence companies take over European ones.

It is modestly comforting to see that Hoon has now been unceremoniously kicked out by NATO.

The problem of course is that this kind of corrupt influence peddling goes on all the time, and will in general be neither delayed nor dented. Our politics are deeply sick – Hoon is but a particularly repulsive symptom.

poor old Hoon, He was only touting for an honest buck or five like any good old jobbing politico would, afterall he has his country mansion to service. The heating bills must be massive since the privitsation of the utility companies by those dammed torys.

Demolition contractors are using heavy plant with giant jaws to dismantle New Labour. CHANGE is a pathetic slogan , as we saw in Norwich North. With the Tories it will be more of the same thing. It would give me some pleasure to see Hoon wriggling in the grip of one of these monster machines, like a rat in the teeth of a pit-bull terrier, because he was one of the chief architects and planners of the illegal invasions, and he deserves considerably more pain than he is currently receiving. I want to see body fluids and bruises. Don’t worry, Obama will close the file later. The photos will never be used to incriminate anybody.

“The problem of course is that this kind of corrupt influence peddling goes on all the time, and will in general be neither delayed nor dented.”

EXACTLY. Consider the Thatcher 80’s where ministers were in it up to the eyes

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Remember that period? When the entire covert establishment were complicit in arming BOTH sides in the Iran/Iraq war in spite of UN embargoes. As Minister for defence procurement Alan Clarke admitted to the Scott Inquiry vis-a-vis his statements to Parliament, he had been “… economical with the actualite” because – as he so offensively put it in his diaries “… if a bunch of ****’s want to beat the hell out of each other and pay us for doing so, why should we complain?” That pretty much sums things up and, if it were possible, things have if anything got even worse.

You will recall there were serious questions about arms to Saudi Arabia at that time too – the so called ‘Al Yamamah’ deals as they were called. As always nothing came of it, even though Tony Blair found it necessary to stamp on an SFO Inquiry into allegations concerning them and BEA Systems ongoing dealings with the Saudis years later.

Margaret Thatchers performance before the Scott Inquiry was memorably described by Matthew Engel in The Guardian as “… part Nixon who took the responsibility but not the blame; part Reagan who remembered nothing; and part Ceaucescu who remembered nothing an HOW DARE THEY?’

Hoon’s problem was he was never an ‘inner-circle’ man and was caught in flagrante delicto so to speak.

‘When asked on US television if she thought that the death of half a million Iraqi children was a price worth paying, Albright replied: “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.”‘

Hoon, let’s not forget, was one of the triumverate, along with Blair and Straw, that dragged Britain into participating in the international crime that was the invasion of Iraq. I always found him, with the others, a vile and loathsome creature, ready to sell his arse to the highest bidder, and willing and ready to bend low and suck the cock of power and slurp his reward with a smirk.

How on earth did we ever come to be ruled by such filth?

Personally I’ve totally given up on this whole sham “democracy” business in the UK. I think the system’s been gutted of all real democratic content, and is now little more than a shabby ritual. I don’t vote anymore. My grandfather never voted. He hated them all, all the parties, all the politicians. I remember him telling me that he didn’t bother to vote once every five years, because he “voted” (through the economic decisions he took in relation to his substantial fortune) every day of his life. How he could be a powerful industrialist, a millionaire, and an anarchist in his heart, was beyond me when I was a teenager. He irriated me because he seemed so cynical, or was it realism?

I even asked him why he didn’t just give his enormous wealth away, instead of being a hypocrite. He replied that this would be very silly indeed and he wasn’t a philanthropist; he wanted the weak and downtrodden to rise up and try to take what he had, and others like him; that would require some effort and organization, and if they were capable of taking his “ill-gotten gains” they would then have shown themselves worthy to rule and prosper. Strange logic, or so I thought at the time, now I’m not so sure.

I agree that is pleasant to see the likes of Hoon getting his comeuppance to some extent, but as you say this kind of influence peddling goes on all the time and ultimately results in poor procurement decisions etc at a massive waste of taxpayers money. It’s the continual secrecy and lack of democracy and accountability that makes this country so sick.

At the moment the BBC are on a massive progaganda shtick about Chuck’s visit to Afghanistan. I see Rory the spy is there too. Probably most people in the country are against this conflict but the BBC represents only the propaganda of the minority and those corporates who ultimately benefit from these wars.

It’s disgraceful that the BBC can abuse taxpayers money in this fashion, but of course they’re a major part of the sickness of British public life too.

Corgi ?” I am glad to hear that “the BBC are on a massive propaganda shtick about Chuck’s visit to Afghanistan” ?” He needs all the free propaganda help he can get, his recent trip to Canada being such a flop. At one point in the early 80’s (when I worked for Grosvenor International ?” owned by the Duke of Westminster) I am proud to say that along with other Grosvenor employees we helped invest a very large chunk of money in North American commercial property for the BBC’s senior management pension plan. What with the current economic meltdown in London, perhaps they will want to get their money offshore again.

Dreoilin ?” I gather your information on the sale of the Independent is accurate. I regularly read The Independent and The Telegraph since I find them both to be excellent papers providing quality information from a different viewpoint ?” and neither are establishment toadies. It seems that Mr. Lebedev will ensure survival of the The Independent’s present viewpoints; hopefully without editorial interference rather like Lord Thompson used to do. Hopefully he will not only support the papers editorial policy but provide a public service by keeping its ownership out of the hands of people who are too close to MI5 / MI6.

How come there is a furore (and rightly so) about Lobbygate, but hardly anything was said last year when those members of the Lords (whose names I don’t recall) were caught shamelessly peddling their influence? I’ve never understood why they didn’t get sent to prison. In any other walk of life they would have been. I guess I’m just naive.

“Two arms dealers attacked Gordon Brown for not spending more on weapons. It doesn’t have the same ring as “army big guns attack Gordon Brown’s defence budget claims” or “Prime Minister is targeted by top brass over army funding claims.” But it is true.

“Admiral Lord Boyce and Lord Guthrie are publicly attacking Brown for not buying enough weapons. But Boyce and Guthrie are not merely a retired soldier and a former sailor.”

Taxpayers money to corporates, the biggest welfare recipients in the western world.

No surprise then to see that Tory scumbag who was caught peddling influence mention the term a number of times. He was selling them access to taxpayers money. People like him are criminal fraudsters, pure and simple and ought to pay heavily for their crimes against the taxpayer.

“[But] members of Parliament’s joint committee on human rights said that such a high level of threat was not credible because it had been continuously maintained for such a long period of time.

“Andrew Dismore MP, chair of the committee, said: “There is no question that we face a serious threat from terrorism, or that we need legislation to counter that threat. The question is, are the counter-terror measures we have in place justifiable, on an ongoing basis, in light of the most up to date information we have” …

“The Committee also criticised the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, for his failure to appear before the committee. “It is unacceptable that the Director General of the Security Service refuses to appear before it to give public evidence ?” despite giving public lectures and media interviews ?” that would allow the Committee to make judgements about the necessity and proportionality of counter-terrorism measures,” the report said.

“The committee also criticised the Government’s narrow definition of complicity in torture as “significant and worrying”. It said that in light of details published in the case of Binyam Mohammed, the case for an urgent independent inquiry into the allegations of complicity in torture was now “irresistible”.

You see, even then we knew about the Big Bang, but we thought that was silly.

You can’t create something out of nothing.

So we thought there was probably no beginning and no end

But we couldn’t really get our head around the concept so came up with the theory that time was kind of global

So after an almost infinite period of time everything would repeat, and although you will have absolutely no memory, you should lead exactly the same life you have done before and everything will happen exactly the same way as it has always done and always will.

You see nearly everything from our perspective that looks to go on to infinity is actually global.

A man who believes the earth is flat if he keeeps going in the same direction around the planet, he will end up in the same position as he started.

So that is what we thought might happen after death.

When you are dead time is irrelevant , it doesn’t matter how many Universe Changes happen in the meantime…

Eventually the molecular structure in exactly the same composition and form that comprises your brain and the thought processes within should recur again…And if that comprises you, then you can Never Die, and Have Always Been Alive

But maybe time isn’t cyclic, maybe it really is linear.

It never actually started and will never end…

That brings along some more possibilities that are even more interesting.

I read somethng brilliant the other say.

It went something like this…

Before you were born, what were the chances that you would ever exist?

” *An Inside Job* reveals a well oiled revolving door between the finance industry, the government and its regulators, and opens a door onto the cosy social world they inhabit together (which includes many breakfasts, lunches and dinners).

“Crucially, it asks whether the public now has a right to know a lot more about these relationships and the deals being concocted between government and the finance industry, in light of the taxpayer rescue of the banks.”